See the enchanting aerial beauty of the Burning Man festival as seen by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission in this satellite image taken over the Black Rock Desert Nevada.
A Cosmic Celebration
The event, which takes place each year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, is a wonder to observe from space. As part of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission — a constellation of satellites monitoring our planet — this stunning photograph is a color explosion showcasing art, individuality, and togetherness.
Shot on the second day of the festival, this image shows a massive tent city that materializes within the barren Black Rock Desert. This arid expanse stretches over 2600 square km of lava beds and alkali flats, providing a unique backdrop much loved by festival attendees.
Some 70,000+ people that gather at the Black Rock Desert each year to partake in a week long spectacle of music, beautiful art installations, experimental and interactive sculpture and art cars. The festival ends with the ritualistic burning of a larger-than-life wooden effigy (the Man) at the center of this makeshift city.
A Geological Wonder
The Black Rock Desert, site of the Burning Man festivalWeiken Lin CC by SA 2.0 Great Basin Desert: The United States’ Largest The Isla de los Estados is part of an internal drainage region – not even throughout exceptional rain events does any water make it to the sea.
The natural features of the Great Basin with its characteristic north-south ranges running parallel to the major basin surfaces have been described as agyrolimes characterized by narrow ranges separated by broad valleys providing a stereotypical for-apart patterned bedrock, structural basins, and sedimentary fill in between. The satellite image clearly shows the Denio Hills and Virgin Range in brown adjacent to the sandy Black Rock Desert where Burning Man takes place.
As part of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, this triplet of images from its two satellites captures this image of the festival and surrounding landscape every five days. This continual inflow of high-resolution data enables us to monitor the evolution of a desert as it metamorphoses from one state (pre-festival) into another (post-festival).
Conclusion
It’s a special event and the team has captured it in a way never seen before: from above Burning Man. Satellite observations play a crucial role in monitoring the evolution of such events, proving essential information to improve public safety and environment protection. This impressive image from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission shows the iconic festival set within the huge landscape of Black Rock Desert, providing a unique opportunity to see the scale of this annual event. This desert oasis with the cosmic dance of humanity playing out against the backdrop of a geological wonder still promises us — as its third and final sibling satellite, Sentinel-2C, will soon join them all in orbit — more detailed and compelling images than we have glimpsed here before.
